Black Box DevicePolice IssueDue to the higher mileage of automobiles, the American Highways Trust Fund is bankrupt. Lawmakers are seeking a new source of revenue by taxing motorists based on the miles they drive rather than the amount of gallons of gas they buy. Background The Highway Trust was established in 1956 by the Highway Revenue Act. Currently, motorists are taxed approximately 18.4 cents per gallon of gasoline along with other taxed items (annual heavy-duty vehicle use tax, load-based tax on heavy-duty tires, and sales tax retail on truck and trailer sales). The revenues are then deposited into the Highway Trust Fund and then allocated to states for their highway programs according to legislative formulas. The Highway Trust Fund is currently bankrupt. The current method of financing highway construction/repair is becoming obsolete and cannot generate enough revenue to cover expenses as automobile miles per gallon increase. Lawmakers have turned to a device currently known as the Black Box as a new way to generate revenue. The Black Box device will track every kilometer traveled by a motorist and this information will be passed to administrators for tax purposes. other means than taxation. They are concerned about the device being used as a means of tracking citizens' movements.Political Alternatives.a. Alternative means of tracking miles traveled outside of GPS tracking.1. Ex. Downloading mileage via modem.b. Increase the currently established tax rate.c. Increase the tax on hybrid/electric vehicles.d. Play a lump sum in the absence of middle of paper......the tourist will use per gallon of gasoline. However, new technology has made this average miles per gallon an unknown number. Motorists can no longer be taxed equally in a system in which some consumers use 10 gallons of gasoline per month while others use 30 gallons of gasoline per month if they both use the highway on the same number of kilometers. The public service of a highway should be taxed equally and the current best alternative is to measure each consumer's usage in terms of miles traveled. The fact of not wanting to be followed by the government is lacking, in my opinion. Today, most people have GPS devices on their cell phones that can be tracked and I hear no complaints about the government tracking them through these means. To conclude my argument for the black box, I return to Adam Smith's first maxim that people should pay according to the benefits they receive..